The 24-Day Renovation Challenge.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Saturday: Point Roberts

On Saturday, we left the builders to it and drove down to Point Roberts, a little point of US soil at the tip of the Tsawwassen peninsula famous for cross-border postal outlets and sunny beaches.

We needed to pick up a table and other things we'd had shipped there and thought we'd combine the trip with a little desperately-needed family downtime.

First, the girls tried out the new hair-washing systems.

Fancy!

We rented a van.

And we picked up our new table! Fifi helped Andrew load up while Katie supervised.

Another reason to visit Point Roberts. Katie remembered this farm from a visit two years ago; we had to find them again.

Nice sweater. New ad campaign for the Gap?

Look at the chompers on this thing! Alpaca, is it? Make a nice sweater for the goat.

Fifi was brave.

There's a nice little cafe down there (with GF menu!). Rare photo of all four of us!

Unexpected treat! The firefighters said it was such a beautiful day, they thought they'd bring the trucks down to the beach for the kids. So sweet: they gave the girls the royal tour. I think it was the whole fleet and the whole crew; not much else for them to do down there.

Fifi was really into it!

Andrew contemplating light fixtures.

The firefighter hats came in handy for beach combing.

Katie added some nice pieces to her extensive rock collection.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Crew Party

Hi folks! Sorry I haven't been posting. Internet connection still sketchy; Andrew finally rigged something up through his iPhone for me....

Let me go back to the weekend. First, Friday night. We had a little crew party to celebrate the move-in and show our gratitude to the Tercera crew for their hard work and dedication.

Cheers! Great lads, every one of em! And fantastic work: the fastest reno ever with no sacrifice in quality. And the working relationship has been a dream!

From left: Dennis, Max, Steve, Keith, Adam, James, Martin, Jim, Dennis, Martin. Missing from picture (still working!) are Dave and Terence. Thank you, guys!

You can see it was quite an elegant affair.

The girls made up cards.

Andrew looking Leprachaun-ish in Katie's picture. Sheer coincidence, honestly.

We gave the guys little gift certificates to this Irish pub (client of St. Bernadine).

Luckily, we didn't discover this gift till afterwards. Otherwise, we would have had to share. ; )

Yum.

G'night.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

moving day

The second move went as well as the first move went badly!

When we got up, things looked bad for a moving day, with black skies and heavy rain, but shortly before the trucks arrived, the clouds miraculously parted and the sun came out for an absolutely glorious t-shirt day (until after the move, about 5, when we had a freak storm with icy, driving rain). It was the first day of spring, as Trudy reminded me! ...And then snow today!? Crazy March weather.

We had little faith when the movers said they'd arrive by noon after packing up the storage containers, but they were actually an hour early (!) and had the two trucks unloaded by 2 pm! Same moving company, different day.

Meanwhile, the building crew hustled to finish some last-minute jobs and clean up the site (I guess I can stop referring it to a "site" now).

and cleaners did their thing.

Temporary countertop ready to go!

Lots of light coming in!

Skylight surrounded by F&B "Sky Light" (chosen for the colour, not the name).

Steve Moore, Tercera partner, worked up a sweat! Way beyond the call of duty.

Even I did my bit.

Moving truck arrived at 11.

From double-rainbow crew to dream team. They were awesome!

This photo is too perfect not to be a promotional picture!

Hamming it up!

Tercera crew busily cleaning up all the construction debris.

Weeks of debris cleaned up in half a day!

The girls arrive with their suitcases....

A bit heavy; a bit dramatic.

Tercera crew on a lunch break. (You guys actually stop to eat?)

It's going to take some work to get beds set up.

When I came home from cleaning the duplex, I cold smell these though the girls had hidden them upstairs in order to surprise me. These arrived from Jeannie, David, Kai, and Nikko! Delightful!

Our new next door neighbours, Lara and Ashton, who has apparently been asking over and over when we were going to move in! He's between the two girls' ages, and they were off and running!

Darius (I know you're reading this ; ), I swear I took a photo of all three of you, but it wasn't on my camera for some reason. We'll have to try again!

Anyway, welcoming new neighbours gave us the kind of move-in gift everybody can use: a 4-pack of toilet paper!